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An online journal about visual art, the urban landscape and design. Mary Louise Schumacher, the Journal Sentinel's art and architecture critic, leads the discussion and a community of writers contribute to the dialogue.

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You might want to consider how public art has added value to other communities. Chicago's Millennium Park brings pleasure to locals and scads of visitors to that city daily. And the list of OTHER cities where similar examples can be touted is long.

Agreed. But the finalists' work here doesn't measure up to the Bean--not by a long shot. The wildflower has the most potential, in my opinion, but the concept gets lost in the complexity of the object. If you can't figure out what it is, why bother?

Don't confuse a rendering of an artwork with an actual artwork. The Aycock and some of the other proposals are not comparable to "Cloud Gate" in a number of ways, but there are a few proposals on the table that have potential to be signficant in a similar way. I do wonder about the siting... But that's another issue for another day.

It's a $700k lawn ornament. Pay me half that, and I'll get you an 8 foot tall lawn gnome that's half as fugly as the finalsts' designs (which all look like an 8th grade art class project). And stop pretending that Milwaukee can live on any social level that Chicago can live on. Millenium Park works because of Chicago's size. Milwaukee is 1/8th the scale of Chicago, public art should be the least of our worries especially when Milwaukee's tourism is a minor industry. And our economy is in the tank, so we should probably worry more about fixing our budget than putting pretty little pictures out on the street.

Seriously, a lot of this public art looks like it should be melted down and sold for scrap.

As someone who lives in Chicago and visits Millennium Park weekly (if not more) the value of public art is beyond question. It is a major economic engine, drawing visitors downtown and attracting tourists. Beyond that, the park has come to be a site of civic pride where Chicago's citizens can come together and relax, where the tensions of class and race fall away, and you can't really put a price on that.

isn't this already payed for by the now defunct 'percent for art' program? i assume there are no take-backs. so isn't this like the cities' last public art hurrah of sorts? as in no more public art to even worry about...?

I was very excited about the prospect of the courthouse project and loved the tuning fork only to be shocked and sickened today upon reading about Abele's reaction as well as the ignorant comments in the blogs. Just returned from a second visit to Barcelona, Spain, a city reknown for its architecture and public art only to be reminded again how barren and unexciting Milwaukee is in comparison. The allocated money for this project is for art and should be used for art. Artistic taste is intensely individual and I understand there will be many who will not like anything we put up unless it is a dull statute of some long-dead person no one remembers, but just look at the magnificent Calatrava art museum. I have traveled all over the world and MAM is known everywhere as one of the world's great buildings. We need more beautiful art not less.

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Keep up with the art scene and trends in urban design with art and architecture critic Mary Louise Schumacher. Every week, you'll get the latest reviews, musings on architecture and her picks for what to do on the weekends.